Death of a Sub-inspector
- The People's Chronicle Editorial :: September 15, 2023 -

HUMAN life is a precious gift and so, death of anyone on either side of the clash divide even in the ongoing senseless violence between the Meetei/Meetei and Kuki-Chin communities should not be regarded as an occasion for jubilation or justification of the crime being committed against one another.

But the death of a Sub-Inspector (SI) of Manipur Police at a bunker manned by armed Kuki militants at Chingphei Ching in Churachandpur district during a gunfight with the security personnel has raised some serious questions that need to be addressed.

The effort to find answers to these questions would also help in understanding why the violent conflict between the Meetei/Meetei and Kuki-Chin communities has been going on for more than four months now with no sign of any slowdown.

Since the outbreak of violent conflict, the spark of which was first lit in Churachandpur district in the evening of May 3 before it soon spread to other Kuki-Chin community dominated areas like Kangpokpi and Moreh, where the houses of Meitei/ Meetei people were targeted and forced the Meiteis/ Meeteis in Imphal to retaliate, there has been claim and counter-claim about security personnel either remaining as mute spectator to the humanitarian crisis unfolding right in front of their eyes or siding with either one of the two warning groups.

Today, this disturbing trend of making claim and counter claim on the complicity of security personnel has become a dominant facet of the narratives being propounded by the two warring communities after every violent confrontation, in addition to one group calling out the other group as the aggressor and vice-versa.

While the Meiteis/Meeteis have time and again alleged the central security forces, particularly the Assam Rifles, of being soft in their dealing towards the armed Kuki-Chin militants and preventing the state force from engaging with these armed aggressors who are reportedly backed by narco-terrorists from across the international border, the Kuki-Chin community has always maintained that the radical elements from Meitei/Meetei community are being backed and supported by the state force, particularly, the police commandos, in carrying out armed violent attacks on the Kuki villages.

Apart from bits of selective video footages that are being floated on the social media and some instances where the security personnel did show their aggressive side while performing their assigned tasks, there had been no solid proof or evidence to establish the complicity of security personnel in fanning the ongoing humanitarian crisis by siding with one party or the other.

But this has changed. The death of a Sub-Inspector of Manipur Police belonging to the Kuki-Chin community at a bunker manned by armed Kuki militants at Chingphei Ching in Churachandpur district during a gunfight with the security personnel has revealed that some security personnel do indeed support and take side in the ongoing conflict but not in the way the Kuki-Chin community has been trying to project.

This incident has also shown the Kuki-Chin community in a poor light and yet again exposed the hollowness of their constant claim of 'Meetei radical elements' being backed and sponsored by the state police.

Can anyone tell us, what was a Sub-Inspector of Manipur Police Department who belonged to the Kuki-Chin community doing in the bunker of Kuki armed militants in the middle of a gunfight with the security personnel, if it was not for helping the Kuki militants?

As we have said at the very outset, death of anyone in the ongoing senseless violence between the Meetei/Meetei and Kuki-Chin communities should not be regarded as an occasion for jubilation or justification of the crime being committed against one another.

But this question needs to be asked and find an answer to stop the proponents of separate administration for the Kuki-Chin people from feeding lies to the gullible public.